Finance Committee, 25 Oct 2005
Meeting date: Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Official Report
326KB pdf
Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill: Financial Memorandum
If members can bear with us, I do not think that this item will take terribly long.
I welcome to the meeting Jane Richardson, the head of parole and life sentence review at the Scottish Executive Justice Department, who will answer members' questions on the financial memorandum to the Management of Offenders etc (Scotland) Bill and additional costs that might arise as a result of amendments agreed at stage 2. As members will recall, we agreed that, if a supplementary financial memorandum had to be produced for a bill, we would take evidence from Executive officials where possible and that, if we still had any concerns about costs, I would raise them on the committee's behalf during the stage 3 debate.
I apologise to Jane Richardson for keeping her waiting. I would have thought that the information that you have provided is relatively self-explanatory, but do you want to add anything to it?
Jane Richardson (Scottish Executive Justice Department):
No. We hope that the minister's letter and the supplementary financial memorandum are as comprehensive and as helpful as possible. We have nothing to add to them.
You have made no statement about the Scottish Prison Service. Are you assuming that the additional costs can be absorbed by the SPS's existing budget with no knock-on effects?
Yes.
As there are no further questions, I thank Jane Richardson for coming along to give that brief response. I also thank members for their forbearance and for staying with the meeting. We will ensure that things are run more tightly next week.
Meeting closed at 13:21.